Good posture leads to better health

Unaligned stance can be root cause of many maladies

The knee bone connects to the leg bone; the leg bone connects to the hip bone; and if you want to walk around in those bones pain-free like in the children’s song, good posture is key, medical professionals say.

“People come to us for relief of chronic pain, or a performance issue,” said Brian Bradley, vice president of Egoscue, a pain relief clinic headquartered in Del Mar. “They want to focus on the story of the pain — and that’s important. But we want to take a step back and look at the entire person. We’ve had athletes come to us and say, ‘I have sciatica that goes down to my ankle; I have a herniated disc in my back.’ What they don’t tell you is that they also blew out their knees.”

And the root cause of many of these maladies can often just be poor posture, which is essential, Bradley asserts, to achieving relief of back pain.

“Our goal is to take the entire person, look you over and say, “What exactly is causing the dysfunction and making you feel this way?” he said. Without good posture and a solid frame, Bradley added that people will notice negative impacts on their sleep, overall fitness, digestive issues and other ailments not initially linked to bad posture.

Another expert, Matt Hsu, of Upright Health San Diego, noted that mental function also is tied to good posture.

“If you have bad posture, you’re slumped over and your rib cage is compressing on your diaphragm and your muscles are not operating at peak efficiency. Not enough oxygen is entering the blood stream, which means not enough oxygen is entering the brain,” he said.

Good posture also impacts the body’s ability to lose weight, Bradley said.

“If your posture is deviating, you’re going to have the pain, you are not going to lose weight the way you would like to. Look at people on the elliptical — after six months, their butt will not be as small as they want it to be. It might even be bigger — I call it the make-your-butt-bigger machine,” he said. “You’re exercising, you’re burning calories, but you’re not doing it efficiently. You’re not moving toxins through your lymphatic (system) you’re not working your hips, your lower abdomen — the areas that are the most stubborn for weight loss.”

Stephie Steele, a posture alignment therapist and personal trainer at Tri-City Wellness Center in Carlsbad, said anyone can do a simple test at home to see if they have bad posture.

“Stand in front of a mirror,” she said. “Look at yourself and see how you look. Is one hip higher than the other? Is a shoulder lower? Maybe one knee looks closer to the ground than the other. These are all things that can usually be corrected.”

Steele said there are simple steps people can take to correct bad posture. If they feel there is a problem, they should make an appointment with a medical professional for a screening. And it’s important to remember, she said, that bad posture likely occurred over time.